


Interdimensional Phone Pals

by Elsin



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, Loneliness, Post-Canon, vague dark thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21970465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: Gwen Stacy is many things, butopen to friendshipsisn’t really one of them.Or,Five rules Gwen makes for herself, and how Peter B. makes her question them.
Relationships: Peter B. Parker & Gwen Stacy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 104
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	Interdimensional Phone Pals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dalia (Dalia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalia/gifts).



These are the rules to being Gwen Stacy:

  1. _Keep going to school. This keeps your dad happy, and keeps him from figuring out who you really are._
  2. _Keep on with the band. It's a tiny little Something Different and maybe it'll distract you, though you don't dare grow too close to your bandmates._
  3. _Save the city, over and over (and over) again. This will never change, no matter how many times you do it. Don't think too hard about that. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time._
  4. _No one can know your secret. Of course, you have a moral code and won't kill anyone, so it's best not to let them find out in the first place._
  5. _No friendships, not anymore. If you couldn't even save your best friend from himself, how could you save anyone else? You can't, of course. Best not to get attached._



These are lonely rules, but her life as Spider-Woman always was going to be a lonely one. She's known that for a long time now.

Maybe Gwen doesn't like it, but she's accepted it. It's not as if she can change it, after all.

* * *

Meeting the other Spider-Folk doesn't change her rules, though it does add a caveat to Rule Five and makes her heart ache for her dimension’s Peter.

(He could have been  _ so much more. _ )

_ 5a. Other superheroes live the same life as you. They don’t count as friends, but still don’t let them get too close. _

* * *

She goes home. Before Miles came swinging in, black suit stark against the reactor tube, she offered to stay behind.

It would have killed her in the end, of course. But maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.

_ Remember Rule Three,  _ she thinks, and lets herself fall, first down and then up, back into her own dimension.

Five minutes have passed since she was taken away. She's not sure whether that makes it better or worse.

* * *

When Peni works out how to crack the dimension barrier in a safe, reliable way that  _ doesn't  _ put the multiverse in danger, Miles is lying calmly in bed. Noir is alone in the corner of his favorite bar. Spider-Ham is out taking pictures for the Daily Beagle. Peter B. Parker is back home, pizza in hand. Peni, naturally, is in her lab.

Gwen Stacy is lying in an alley, soaked in rainwater (and maybe a little bit of blood), trying to ignore the burning pain of fractured ribs long enough to get up. She thinks her wrist is off on that side, too, which makes her prospects for swinging home even worse.

Kingpin is down for now, at least, caught in her webs, or she's sure she'd be dead already.

And that, of course, is when the dimension portal opens next to her head, and she hears Peni's voice.

"Hey, Gwen," says Peni.

"Hey," says Gwen, trying and failing to make her voice sound normal. It's rough and low and she knows it, but she doesn't want anyone to worry over her. "Look, now isn't the best time, I'm a little preoccupied. Is this a one-time thing, or..."

"Hold on," says Peni. "Prototype coming through."

From the crackling space next to Gwen a phone emerges, though she's never quite seen the like before. It looks far more like a souped-up communicator from  _ Star Trek _ than any other phone she’s seen, and has more knobs and buttons than she knows what to do with.

"There's instructions on the back," says Peni. "You can't mess it up."

And then the portal closes and Gwen is left alone in the rain, ribs burning. She almost wishes it could just wash her away.

* * *

In the end, she doesn't have to call anyone. Peter B. calls her one night, when she's sitting alone atop a skyscraper, one leg dangling over the side and the other drawn up to her chest, wondering absently how far she could fall before she had to shoot out a web, and what might happen if she overestimated her reflexes, just a little.

The ringing buzz startles her, and she nearly drops the phone in her attempts to pull it out and actually  _ answer  _ the damn thing.

"Hi, hello," she eventually says, a little breathlessly. "Sorry. I haven't actually used this thing before."

"You haven't?" says Peter, slowly, like he doesn't quite understand.

Gwen laughs shortly. "I've been busy," she says. "You know how it is."

"I do," he says after a long pause. "You should try to make it to the group calls, though, they're great fun. And you could get in on the meme comparisons that Peni and Miles always seem to land on—I can't understand half of what they're saying at that point."

"Maybe," says Gwen. "If I have the time." She sighs, and leans back a little to look up at the sky. "How are you?" she asks, because it's been weeks and she wasn't raised in a barn and it's the Done Thing.

"Things are going better, I think," says Peter. "MJ and I are trying to put things back together. I went out with her the other night."

"That's good," she says. After a moment she laughs. "Good thing, too. I was starting to think I'd never be able to take you anywhere."

"You  _ can't  _ take me anywhere," Peter says, though he sounds amused. "There isn't a stable way to go dimension-hopping, after all."

“I suppose not,” she says.

A siren sounds in the distance, and she turns her head quickly towards it.

“I have to go,” she says. “My city needs me.”

“Go on, then, Spider-Woman,” Peter says, and she can hear his smile. “Save your city.”

She goes.

* * *

The next time he calls her, she’s  _ just _ finished a math test, twenty minutes before the end of the period and before most of her classmates. Suddenly she’s very glad of that; it would’ve been terribly awkward to have it go off  _ during _ the test.

“Gwen Stacy, interdimensional telephone service,” she says. “What’s up?”

“Oh, good, you answered,” says Peter. He sounds utterly exhausted. “I tried you before, but you must have been asleep then, and Noir didn’t answer, Peni was in school, Ham and Miles weren’t any help, and I can’t ask anyone  _ here _ about this—”

“Slow down,” says Gwen. “I’m in school too, you know, but I’ve got a few minutes. Just got out of a test. What do you need help with?” He could be in some sort of Spider-Man trouble, but surely he wouldn’t have had to go through  _ everyone _ before her in order to get help with  _ that _ .

“MJ’s birthday is coming up,” says Peter. “And I haven’t the faintest idea what to get her—I want it to be special you see, since it’s her first birthday since we’ve been getting ourselves back together, and like I said I don’t want to mess it up—anyway.”

She wanders into an empty classroom and perches atop a desk. “What would you get her, if you weren’t so concerned about making it special?”

“I used to get her flowers, sometimes,” he says. “Or jewelry, or books—she likes romances, or mysteries, or combinations of the two. One year I got her tickets to a Broadway show—Hadesville, it was called—and I think she liked that quite a lot. She’d been wanting to see it.”

“All right, then,” says Gwen, drumming the fingers of her free hand against her leg. “Let’s see. Books, flowers, jewelry, show tickets. Is there a reason any of those wouldn’t work this year? Or some combination?”

“They’re such ordinary gifts,” Peter says. “I couldn’t—I was an awful husband, and then we split up entirely, and I want this year to be  _ special _ . I want her to know that I’m not going to up and leave again, that I’m in it for the long haul this time.”

“Does she like fancy dinners? Any activities she’d be inclined towards, maybe, that she doesn’t usually get to do?”

“I’m not so sure about that  _ exactly _ ,” he says, “but we did go ice skating on a date once, when we’d just gotten together—we were both awful, mind, but it was fun. I don’t know if she’s gone since.”

“Why not take her again?” she asks. “Say you get her some normal type of present, and take her out to dinner, and take her ice skating afterwards, would that work?”

“I don’t know,” says Peter. “I don’t know. It sounds—fine. But I want something that’s  _ more _ than fine, for this.”

“What’s your budget, anyway?”

“Not very big,” he says gloomily. “That themed restaurant really was an awful idea. Make sure you don’t do  _ that _ .”

Gwen sighs and shifts the phone to the other side of her head. “Your Mary Jane—she cares about you, right?”

“I think so.”

“Then she’s  _ going _ to like whatever you put together for her, or at least she should; if she cares about you then it’ll be your efforts and thoughtfulness she enjoys, even if you can’t put together a present that’s totally out of this world.”

“I hope so,” says Peter. Then, “You know, that’s not… not a terrible idea, generally. Dinner, flowers, a new Eleanor Bobs novel—she never gets them for herself till they’re out in paperback—and ice skating if she wants to. I’ll try it. Yeah. That should work.”

The bell rings, and Gwen jumps.

“I need to go,” she says. “I’ve got class soon; I hope I was some help.”

“You were  _ incredibly _ helpful,” he says. “Go on, then. I wouldn’t want to make you late—I’d imagine being Spider-Woman is difficult enough for that.”

She makes a face, because he’s  _ right _ , and says, “Good luck on your gift-giving.”

* * *

Four months later, she turns sixteen. Her dad buys her a cake, and she turns in early—she says she’s going to bed, but she fully intends to hop out her window to go superheroing instead.

Standing by the window, looking out over the city, something stops her from changing into her costume. She doesn’t know  _ why _ she hesitates; after all, lately it seems that all she does is go to school, go to band practice, and then suit up. Spider-Woman takes up most of her time.

Gwen pulls out her interdimensional cell phone and finally squints at the tiny instructions on the back; she’s never actually  _ started _ a call with it before. Eventually she works it out—Peni was right, it’s not actually  _ that _ complicated—and, before she can chicken out, calls Peter B.

“Hey!” he says when he picks up. “Gwen! How are you?”

“I’m all right,” she says. “A bit… I don’t know. Lonely, maybe.” She sighs. “I’m sixteen today, you know.”

“Sixteen?” says Peter. “But you said—jeez. You’ve been at this since you were  _ thirteen years old _ ?”

“Almost fourteen,” says Gwen, “but yes, I suppose so.”

“Jeez,” says Peter again. “I didn’t get  _ my _ spider bite till I was sixteen already, and here you’ve been at it for years.”

Sitting and staring out her window, Gwen feels the weight of her decisions on her spider-strong shoulders. It’s not an easy weight to carry. And she doesn’t—

She’s never actually said  _ anything _ about this, at least not properly; relating her rough backstory doesn’t  _ count _ .

“Peter,” she says slowly, “remember how I said I lost my best friend?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Saved your dad, couldn’t save your best friend. I remember.”

“When I was fourteen, my best friend was Peter Parker,” says Gwen, so quietly she isn’t sure Peter actually  _ heard _ her until she hears him breathe in, just a little. “He wanted—he tried to give himself powers. Like me. But it messed with his head, and his body—I had to fight him—and he died. I never knew what killed him in the end.”

“Well,” says Peter, with a tiny humorless laugh she’s almost certain isn’t for  _ her _ , “that makes us two of a kind. My Green Goblin threw my dimension’s Gwen Stacy off a building, you see, and it turns out that unenhanced human spines can’t always withstand being suddenly yanked out of freefall.”

“Oh,” says Gwen, for what else can she say? “What a pair we are.” She shakes her head and laughs giddily.

“Here’s the thing, Gwen,” says Peter when her laughter subsides. “You said you swore off friendships, didn’t you?”

“…Yes.” It’s starting to rain outside, a fine mist coming down over the city.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he says, “when we first met, as I’d’ve been a terrible hypocrite if I did. But, Gwen, take it from someone who’s been at this twenty years more than you: I’ve never done my best work when I was alone.”

“I don’t  _ have _ friends anymore,” she protests.

“Aren’t you in a band?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think your bandmates would make acceptable friends?”

“Maybe. I don’t really know.”

“Why not try them?”

She sighs, and turns away from the window. “I don’t want them to get hurt,” she says. “Spider-Woman doesn’t get to have friends when they’re just ordinary people. When they can be so easily  _ hurt _ .”

“I can’t make you do anything,” says Peter. “All I can say is what I’ve learned myself.”

“I know,” she says.

For a few minutes they sit there, and the only sound Gwen can hear is that of the rain outside.

“Happy birthday, Gwen,” Peter says finally.

“Thanks,” she says. “For—for everything.”

“What are interdimensional superhero friends  _ for _ , if not being there?” he says.

Gwen laughs a little at that, and it comes surprisingly easily. “Say, how’d the skating go, anyway?”

From the other end of the line Peter sighs dramatically. “So it turns out,” he says, “that MJ took the disastrous high school ice skating as a bit of a challenge, and she actually went and got herself a few lessons, and  _ now _ she actually  _ knows _ how to move on the ice. Me, on the other hand—I never did that.” From the sound of his voice, Gwen is sure he’s smiling. “It was an absolute disaster. MJ laughed herself sick at my inept flailing, and my spider-sense saved me from at least twelve different falls at the last minute.” He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “It was  _ fantastic _ .”

* * *

These are the rules to being Gwen Stacy:

  1. _Keep going to school. This keeps your dad happy, and it keeps him from figuring out who you really are._
  2. _Keep on with the band. It's a tiny little Something Different and maybe it'll distract you. Maybe someday you’ll even make real friends of your bandmates._
  3. _Save the city, over and over (and over) again. This will never change, no matter how many times you do it. Don't think too hard about that. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time. Every time you do it is worth the price you pay in bruises and aches, for it means the people can keep on with their lives._
  4. _No one can know your secret. Of course, you have a moral code and won't kill anyone, so it's best not to let them find out in the first place. If they somehow do, see if you can’t make something of that._
  5. _Be careful with your friends; they’re precious. Keep them safe as best as you can, and keep them close.  
_ _Perhaps, someday, they will even be your strength._



If nothing else, at least, Gwen has her interdimensional Spider-Folk for her, each of them no more than a prototype phone call away.

**Author's Note:**

> an absolutely massive thank-you to kurushi, who jumped in to beta this and turned it from disaster to something workable, it would never have been completed without their aid.


End file.
